Excerpt (2)

Plot as a concept seems like a masculine construct. 

I say this to Iris. She says, Yes–Exactly. People are always asking what happens next but they don’t think about what’s happening now. She continues but I’m so fixated on what she just said that I can’t replicate the rest of it. 

You’re right. It reminds me of this book I read a while ago about how plot structure can’t account for slow violences. The book was Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. In it Rob Nixon defines climate change as a type of slow violence, “a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is often not viewed as violence at all.” This slow violence creates “obstacles that can hinder our efforts to mobilize and act decisively.” He calls this the “long-dying.” I don’t say all of this to Iris, of course. 

At some point while I’m sitting there, I see my life–this moment–as an outsider might see it. My computer with a tab open that seems relatively interesting. Books stacked next to iced tea. My friend in front of me. The setting sun cutting between us and shining onto my hands. She says, I like the way the light is coming in, and I try to store this feeling away for later, sure that if I can find it again things will be alright. Yeah, it’s pretty. 

The next morning I try to conjure it and I can’t. I google if I’m dying of cancer, perhaps that’s why I feel like this. That could explain it, right? My body must be actively, routinely killing itself and I’m trying to make it move despite that. That makes sense, right? There’s a reason for this. I’m sick. I must be sick–really sick, actually sick. Right? This thought disgusts me, and yet it's there. That’s weak. I know. I know. Right?